Kira's POV
Seraphine's screams cut through me like knives.
Mordain's shadow magic squeezes her and the other guards, lifting them higher off the ground. Their armor cracks under the pressure. Blood drips from their noses, their ears.
They're dying right in front of us.
"Stop!" Lucian roars, his light magic exploding outward. But Mordain's shadows are too strong, too ancient. They drink Lucian's light like wine, growing darker and more powerful.
Through our bond, I feel Lucian's desperation. These are his people. His friends. The soldiers he's commanded for years. Watching them die is destroying him from the inside.
"Let them go!" I shout at Mordain. "Your fight is with me, not them!"
"My fight is with everyone who stands in my way." Mordain's smile is cruel. "But I'll make you a deal, little Kira. Give yourself to me willingly, and I'll let these Light Court fools live."
"Don't!" Seraphine gasps out, even as blood runs down her face. "Don't... trust him..."
She's right. Through our bond, Lucian and I both know the truth: Mordain will kill them anyway. He's a liar, a murderer, a monster who feeds people to the Void for power.
But what choice do we have?
We fight, Lucian's thought cuts through my panic. Together.
We can't beat him. He's too strong.
Maybe alone we can't. But we're not alone anymore.
Through the bond, his certainty flows into me. His faith. His desperate, foolish hope that maybe—just maybe—our impossible bond can do impossible things.
I reach for his hand. Our fingers interlock, and power surges through the connection. Shadow and light, mixing and merging. The twilight magic that saved us from my curse attack blazes to life again.
But this time, we're ready for it. This time, we guide it instead of letting it guide us.
The silver-gold magic explodes outward in a wave of pure power. It slams into Mordain's shadows, burning them away like fog in sunlight. Seraphine and the guards fall, gasping.
Maven rushes forward, catching Seraphine before she hits the ground. The other guards collapse, coughing up blood but alive.
Mordain stumbles backward, his smile finally gone. "Impossible. You shouldn't be able to control twilight magic yet. It takes years to master!"
"We don't have years," I say, feeling Lucian's strength flowing through me. Feeling our souls working as one. "We barely have days."
"Then I'll kill you now!" Mordain's hands crackle with dark energy. Not shadow magic—something worse. Something that smells like death and tastes like rot. "The Void gave me power you can't imagine!"
He strikes.
The dark energy screams toward us like a living thing. Through our bond, Lucian and I move as one. We raise our joined hands, and twilight magic forms a shield in front of us.
The impact shakes the ground. Buildings crack. Windows shatter. The force of Mordain's attack against our defense creates a shockwave that levels everything around us.
But we hold. Together, we're strong enough.
"This is wrong!" Mordain screams, and for the first time, I hear fear in his voice. "Shadow and light can't work together! You're breaking the natural order!"
"Maybe the natural order was wrong," Lucian says. Through our bond, I feel his revelation—after three years of hunting me, of believing I killed his brother, of thinking shadow wielders were evil, he's finally understanding the truth. "Maybe shadow and light were always meant to work together."
Through the bond, his memories flood into me. I see his childhood with Cassian, two brothers laughing in the sunlight. See the day Cassian died, and Lucian's world shattered. See three years of hunting me, hating me, needing to blame someone for his pain.
And I see the moment—right now, in this battle—when he stops hating and starts understanding.
My own memories flow back to him. My village burning. My parents dying. The Shadow Guild raising me as a weapon. The night I found the Shadow King dying and knew I'd been betrayed by someone I trusted.
All the pain. All the loneliness. All the years of killing because it was the only thing I was good at.
He sees it all. Understands it all. And through the bond, I feel his heart breaking for me.
I'm sorry, his thought whispers. I'm so sorry for everything.
I know, I think back. I forgive you.
The words surprise me. But they're true. The bond makes lying impossible, even to ourselves. I do forgive him. Somehow, despite everything, I've forgiven the man who hunted me for three years.
Maybe because through the bond, I understand him now. Know that he was never evil—just broken.
Just like me.
Our twilight magic pulses brighter, fed by our understanding. Our acceptance. Our—
Don't say it, Lucian's thought cuts through mine, panicked.
Say what?
You know what. Don't think it. Don't feel it. It's too soon. Too fast. Too—
But I already feel it. The emotion growing in both our hearts, terrifying and undeniable.
We're falling in love with each other.
And that makes us even more dangerous.
The twilight magic explodes outward with new intensity. Mordain screams, throwing up shields, but our power smashes through them. He falls to his knees, bleeding from his eyes and nose.
"This isn't over," he gasps. "The Void is coming. And when it arrives, your pathetic bond won't save you. Nothing will!"
He slams his hand on the ground. Dark magic erupts, creating a portal beneath him. He falls through, disappearing before we can stop him.
The twilight magic fades. Lucian and I collapse, gasping for air. We're still holding hands, our fingers locked together.
Through the bond, we're both thinking the same thing: That was too close. We almost died.
"Lucian." Seraphine limps toward us, her armor cracked and bloody. She stares at our joined hands, at the silver-black marks on our skin where the bond shows. "What have you done?"
"What I had to." Lucian helps me stand, then faces his second-in-command. "Seraphine, I know this looks bad—"
"Looks bad?" She laughs bitterly. "You're soulbound to the woman who killed your brother! You used forbidden magic! You attacked your own people!"
"I saved my own people," Lucian corrects quietly. "And Kira didn't kill Cassian. Mordain did."
Seraphine goes still. "What?"
"He confessed. Just now, before you arrived." Through our bond, Lucian draws on my memories. "He killed the Shadow King. He killed Cassian. He framed Kira for both murders to start a war between the Courts."
"That's—" Seraphine shakes her head. "That's impossible. The evidence—"
"Was fabricated. All of it." Lucian's voice is firm. "I spent three years hunting an innocent woman while the real killer prepared to feed both our Courts to the Void."
The other guards are standing now, watching us with weapons still drawn. Through the bond, I feel Lucian's fear. These are his soldiers. If they don't believe him, they'll kill us both.
"I don't expect you to trust me," Lucian continues. "But I'm begging you—check the reports about reality tears. About villages disappearing. The Void is real, Seraphine. And Mordain is helping it destroy everything."
Seraphine's cold eyes search his face. Finally, she looks at me. "Is he telling the truth?"
"Yes." My voice is hoarse. "I know you have no reason to believe me. I'm a shadow wielder. An assassin. A murderer of—" My voice catches. "A murderer of many people. But I didn't kill the Shadow King or Cassian Daybreak. I swear it."
Through the bond, Lucian squeezes my hand. His support flows into me, warm and steady.
Seraphine studies us for a long moment. Then she sheathes her sword. "I believe you."
Relief floods through both Lucian and me.
"But the Light Court won't," Seraphine continues grimly. "When they find out you're soulbound to a shadow wielder, they'll execute you both for treason."
"Then we don't tell them," Maven says, stepping forward. She's still holding Seraphine up, keeping the injured commander on her feet. "Not yet. Not until we can prove Mordain is the real enemy."
"And how do we do that?" one of the other guards demands.
"We save my sister," Maven says. "We break into the Shadow Court dungeons, rescue Lyra, and make her testify about what Mordain has done. She's seen his rituals. His dealings with the Void cult."
"A child's testimony won't be enough," Seraphine argues.
"Then we find more evidence," I say. "Mordain has to have records. Plans. Something we can use to expose him."
"You want to raid the Shadow Court?" Seraphine looks at me like I'm insane. "That's suicide."
"Everything we do is suicide at this point," Lucian says. Through our bond, I feel his dark humor. "Might as well die doing something useful."
Seraphine sighs heavily. "You're both insane." She looks at her guards. "But I'm coming with you."
"What?" Lucian stares at her. "Seraphine, you're injured—"
"And you're my commander. My friend." She meets his eyes. "I'm not letting you walk into the Shadow Court alone. Even if you are soulbound to the enemy."
"I'm not the enemy," I say quietly.
"Maybe not." Seraphine's expression softens slightly. "But you're still a shadow wielder. And I'm still Light Court. This alliance goes against everything I believe in."
"Beliefs change," Maven says. "Trust me. An hour ago, I was trying to kill Kira. Now I'm helping her break into the most secure prison in the realm."
"The world's ending," one of the guards mutters. "Nothing makes sense anymore."
Through our bond, Lucian and I share a thought: He's not wrong.
We're about to discuss plans when a child's scream cuts through the air.
Everyone freezes.
"That came from the east," Seraphine says, her hand going to her sword.
We run toward the sound. Through our bond, dread builds in both Lucian and me. That scream sounded young. Terrified.
We round a corner and stop dead.
A little girl stands in the middle of the street. She's maybe seven years old, with dark hair and tears streaming down her face. And surrounding her are three Void tears—cracks in reality that pulse with hungry darkness.
The tears are getting bigger. Moving closer to the girl.
"Help me!" she sobs. "Please! I can't move!"
Through the bond, Lucian and I both understand at once: this is a trap. Mordain set this up to slow us down. Maybe to kill us.
But we can't leave a child to die.
"Cover us," Lucian says to Seraphine. Then he looks at me. "Ready?"
"No," I admit. "But let's do it anyway."
We run toward the girl, our hands still joined, twilight magic ready. The Void tears sense us coming. They pulse faster, growing larger.
We're ten feet away when the girl's face changes. Her innocent features twist into something older. Crueler.
"Gotcha," she says in Mordain's voice.
The Void tears explode outward, and reality shatters around us.
Through our bond, Lucian and I scream as one:
We've been played.